LIFX Luna smart lamp review: Drop a pop of color wherever you need it

On the surface, smart lamps like the LIFX Luna seem a limited, even boring, category. A smart light bulb can be dropped into any light fixture, so why limit yourself to a singular design that can’t be changed—and that can’t be repaired when one or more of its LEDs inevitably dies?

Smart lighting stalwart LIFX attempts to address some of these concerns, along the way making a compelling case for a dedicated smart lamp device. It won’t work for every environment, but the Luna has enough flexibility and a rich enough feature set to recommend it to a wider swath of customers than you’d think.

Specifications

The lamp itself is innocuous out of the box: It’s an all-white, oval device measuring about 8 x 5 inches across its face and 2 inches deep. The Luna is designed to either sit upright on a table, its light shining outward at a slightly upward angle, or to lie flat on its back, so the light can shine directly upwards. One could compare it to the Bluetooth-and-Zigbee-based Philips Hue Go, except that the Luna can also be mounted on the wall, using a clever mounting bracket that attaches to a surface with just one screw (included).

Total lighting power is nearly twice that of the Philips product—1,000 lumens compared to 520—with a maximum power draw of 25 watts. It should be noted that the Hue Go can operate on either AC or battery power, whereas the Luna depends on the 6-foot cable connecting it to a standard power brick (no detachable USB cables here).

All physical controls are located on the top of the Luna, and they’re basic and reasonably intuitive. Paired + and – buttons brighten and dim the display, and an on/off switch can either turn the light on instantly or, with a long-press, slowly illuminate with a sunrise effect. A final button can be used to cycle through various preloaded effects.

Day-to-day use

Naturally the LIFX app is the key to a vast array of intricate configuration options, and here the Luna behaves much like any other LIFX product. I had no trouble onboarding the lamp to my Wi-Fi network (2.4GHz networks only) through the app’s auto-discovery feature, after which I was able to put it through its paces in full.

Like all recent LIFX products, the Luna supports a huge range of white color temperatures (1500K to 9000K); plus, full color support courtesy of RGBW LEDs. Color selections can make the face of the Luna a solid shade or appear as a gradient or blend of three complementary colors. Given the small size of the Luna’s light panel, however, some look better than others—there’s just not enough room for a whole lot of variation from one end of the panel to the other for complex effects to show up well.

The lamp’s 31 LED zones can even be individually configured, though dreams of spelling your initials in light should be put to rest, as the LEDs all tend to blur together thanks to the diffusing front cover.

As always, LIFX’s vast array of preconfigured themes and dynamic motion effects are all available, whether you want the Luna to cycle through the color wheel or fire off lighting effects in time with ambient music (courtesy of your phone’s microphone). Again, there’s only so much complexity you can get on an 8 x 5-inch oval, but if you need a little pop of shimmering green for St. Patrick’s Day, LIFX has it ready for you with a touch.

Christopher Null/Foundry

The Luna also supports Matter-over-Wi-Fi, so it can be used in third-party ecosystems, though there are considerably fewer configurability options in apps like iOS Home and SmartThings than you’ll get in the LIFX app directly. There’s also a dormant Thread radio onboard, which LIFX plans to activate later this year. Oddly, when using the Luna with iOS, I was able to freely control the brightness of the lamp, but was unable to change the color of the lights until I manually unplugged the light and plugged it back in. I imagine this glitch will be fixed with a firmware update.

Matter also enables another feature on the Luna by letting the buttons on top of the device do double-duty. Not only can they be used to control scenes on the Luna itself but also to control other devices you have in your smart home that are connected to the same hub. Each button can be set to perform three different functions: Short-press, double-press, and long-press. It’s easy enough to set up. For example, I was able to set a short button press on the Luna to open a set of SwitchBot curtains and another to close them.

Should you buy the LIFX Luna?

Potential Luna buyers should note, however, that pressing a button also causes that button to perform its default action on the device (such as switching the lighting theme). This might be handy for some users, but this latter behavior is probably something that will need to be addressed in firmware updates to prevent frustration.

[This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lighting.]

At $70, the LIFX Luna is not a major investment, although, as noted at the top, it’s certainly a much bigger one than dropping a smart light bulb into a standard lamp fixture. That said, I really enjoyed the lamp’s flexibility, including its ability to be easily relocated on demand. If nothing else, it sure is a lot more fun than playing with a light bulb.